THE PACK Message Boards

As most of you may have noticed, you weren't able to access The Packs Den between December 6th to 14th. This is because the domain "thepack.network" was in a post-expiration phase since Anthony didn't pay for the continued registration (which is just $10/year). It's called the Redemption Grace Period, which lasts for 30 days after a domain expires, is a time period that the domain owner is able to reclaim the domain before it officially expires and they lose ownership. Since Anthony is the sole owner of the domain, none of us have direct access to payments or changing settings of the domain such as moving to a different server, which we can't do until we have appropriate ownership (which can be done painlessly by transferring the domain).

Luckily the registrar the domain was registered with allows third-parties to renew a domain for an owner (for like 3x the cost though); which we have done, which is why The Packs Den is reaccessible. Although, that was just renewal, which still keeps Anthony as the owner. If we were to wait for the domain to officially expire, it would have been handed off to a domain reseller (which was likely going to be SmartName), that would likely have a hundred to thousand dollar ransom that we'd have to pay to acquire it.

In other news I've been looking around for a new hosting provider and have come up with the following:
IntoVPS - $10/month "VPS Start" plan: 512MB dedicated RAM (up to 1GB available), 20GB storage, 500GB bandwidth
FiveBean $15/month - "Starter" plan: 512MB dedicated (up to 1GB available), 50GB storage, 450GB bandwidth
fsckVPS - $13/month - 512MB dedicated RAM (up to 1GB available), 30GB storage, 400GB bandwidth (assuming they're accidentally mixing up GigaByte with Gigabit)
As for an storage concerns, we may just have a shared hosting plan parallel to the VPS, so that we get the best of both.

We may simply open a Paypal account for accepting donations to relieve payment for hosting (considering $100-$180 upfront isn't that much of an expense; but would be convenient and stable to have payment by multiple rather than one individual). The only thing really holding us back is the fact that we don't have control over the domain, which Anthony has (whom seems uncooperative currently, due to not replying to a single of my 3 messages sent over a span of a month), thus we can't move to a different server unless a temporary domain is used in the mean time (for the new server).

Thank you to those who helped pay for the renewal of the domain.like i have said before im all for moving to a new server and am willing to help pay for it when needed.

What's our present status? That is, how long do we have hosting?

It seems that things become an issue around this time each year. Us old-timers may need to consider pooling together to fund the aforementioned PayPal account. Those of us going to A-Kon or other conventions in the area will also need to keep "lobbying" (i.e., pestering) Anthony Brownrigg about site ownership, maintenance, and continued existence.

I'll go for it so long as nobody jumps in on me while I'm balancing my checkbook...(hint).

Well, if The Pack sets up a simple (and hopefully easy) way of doing advertising, I'd like to pay for an ad, which will help defray other costs...

*post is here to indicate interest*

Ads would be an okay tactic. I wouldn't like sacrificing monitor room, but we have some to spare, or at least I do, with my 1600x900 screen.

Ok, we have some time till The Pack is no longer available to us AGAIN.So in that time Im thinking that we all need to get ABrownrigg's attention.He has neglected to respond to many emails concerning The Packs future welfare and Im thinking that if each member of The Pack took the time to send one message through all the sources provided, maybe just maybe we will get a response.We all want The Pack to be here and running in the future,RIGHT! So, although he has control of wether this will happen,WE have the ability to make him see how much we want it.Giving control of The Pack to us will give us the ability to control the future welfare of The Pack,and those that truly want it will help in anyway they can.

Here are links to some of his profiles.
http://www.youtube.com/user/abrownrigg

http://www.myspace.com/abrownrigg

http://twitter.com/abrownrigg

http://www.facebook.com/abrownrigg

All Im asking is that all users of this site send him a message concerning The Packs future welfare(Admins need accsess to the domain and or require cPanel access to ensure this),and ask him to visit us so that we may discuss this issue.If we all do what we can to make him aware,he's bound to take notice.It would only take a few moments of your time.Many might not be able to message him at every source,not everyone is apart of all those places but even one message at one place from every member would leave his mail over flowing.
ATTENTION:
AS OF APRIL 13TH ABROWNRIGG HAS BEEN CONTACTED AND RESPONDED,ALTHOUGH THERE IS NO DEFINITE ANSWER AS TO WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN,HE IS LOOKING IN TO IT.SO AT THIS POINT CONTACTING HIM FURTHER IS NO LONGER NECESSARY.

Spamming in progress

oh dear, is that really what i suggested.i hadn't considered that it would be considered spamming.um, oops.oh well,LET THE SPAMMING BEGIN!
i have an awful feeling im gonna take some heat for that.

Otherwise as a few examples of things that we really need to do, but can't (due to lack of credentials, which we previously had) are:

• Upgrade the forum. We're at version 3.0.4, the recent version is 3.0.7 which has a couple new features (RSS/Atom syndication, quick reply, etc),
• Upgrade the forum for better anti-spam functionality. Currently there seems to be an average of over 37 bots registering each day. 7 of average 37 write about 8 spam posts each. There's currently 3,100 bot accounts that also need to be deleted. The functionality provided with the update would allow us to implement our own anti-spam solution (again), to have a bulletproof defense against spam (again), and to swiftly rid of any obvious bots/spam (through database access).
• Change anything that isn't of the forum. Such as the website homepage, which we intend on replacing with new rich content.

Part of the reason I haven't really been around the forum recently is due to being busy, but also avoiding the piling workload that the spam is becoming, which moderators such as RedEye have been working on single-handedly for at least a month now.

takyoji wrote: [*]Upgrade the forum for better anti-spam functionality. Currently there seems to be an average of over 37 bots registering each day. 7 of average 37 write about 8 spam posts each. There's currently 3,100 bot accounts that also need to be deleted. The functionality provided with the update would allow us to implement our own anti-spam solution (again), to have a bulletproof defense against spam (again), and to swiftly rid of any obvious bots/spam (through database access).

0.0

takyoji wrote: Part of the reason I haven't really been around the forum recently is due to being busy, but also avoiding the piling workload that the spam is becoming, which moderators such as RedEye have been working on single-handedly for at least a month now.

RedEye...

So...any change?
Should we spam him again? >.>

I have a new server that we'll be able to jump to (the virtual private server that hosts paradice.net), but still don't have our official domain; therefore, after months of no success of a response we registered thepack.network which shall be the next location. The only hold back right now is creating a new theme for the forum (similar to the current one). Reason for it is that there's been a list of updates and it would be impractical to manually update our current theme (which was a mess to recreate a while ago in the first place).

When everything is complete I'll transfer the database (which holds all the accounts, posts, forums, private messages, and all other details) along with the avatars and any public attachments. When that's done, I'll simply disable this forum with a notice of going to thepack.network instead.

It would be greatly amusing if AB came back right after we did that, and was left looking for everyone in an empty room.

I'm so sorry, but your forum is in a different castle.